Transcript Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking
Biography
• Stephen William Hawking
was born on 8 January
1942. In Oxford, England.
• Stephen then went on to
Cambridge to do
research in Cosmology,
there being no-one
working in that area in
Oxford at the time.
• After leaving the Institute
of Astronomy in 1973
Stephen came to the
Department of Applied
Mathematics and
Theoretical Physics, and
since 1979 has held the
post of Lucasian
Professor of
Mathematics.
Biography
• Professor Hawking has twelve
honorary degrees, was
awarded the CBE in 1982, and
was made a Companion of
Honors in 1989.
• He works at Cambridge
University in England as a
physics professor. He is a
quantum cosmologist - a
person who studies the
universe at a time when it was
so small that atoms had not yet
formed. Hawking is best
known for his work involving
the exploration into the nature
of black holes
• Hawking would have been
remarkable for just his cutting
edge work in theoretical
physics. However, he has
managed to strike people's
interests in science in a way
other scientists of his stature
have not been able to do.
• His best selling book, A Brief
History of Time offered a new
way to look at things. He sold
millions of copies to audiences
eager to learn even some of
what Stephan Hawking has to
offer.
Disability
• Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
(ALS), often referred to as
"Lou Gehrig's disease," is a
progressive neurodegenerative
disease that affects nerve cells
in the brain and the spinal
cord.
• Motor neurons reach from the
brain to the spinal cord and
from the spinal cord to the
muscles throughout the body.
• Stephen Hawking is unable to
move or speak* because of a
disease called Amyotrophic
Lateral Sclerosis
• Also, most ALS sufferers die
within five years of being
diagnosed, while Hawking has
survived over three decades
with it. 5% of the cases are
hereditary.
• ALS kills nerve cells in the
upper spinal cord, and
therefore they cannot carry
signals from the brain to the
muscles of the body. ALS is an
incurable disease
Disability
• As motor neurons
degenerate, they can no
longer send impulses to
the muscle fibers that
normally result in muscle
movement.
• Early symptoms of ALS
often include increasing
muscle weakness,
especially involving the
arms and legs, speech,
swallowing or breathing
• When the motor neurons
die, the ability of the brain
to initiate and control
muscle movement is lost.
• With voluntary muscle
action progressively
affected, patients in the
later stages of the
disease may become
totally paralyzed.
Assistive device
• Stephen uses a
program called
Equalizer written by a
company called Word
Plus.
• It uses a cursor
across part of the
screen.
• It is written by a
company called
words plus.
• He uses a voice
synthesizer made by
Speech +.
• Writes paper using
program called tex.